But, in order to disprove the records of the thirteenth century, something more is necessary than merely to burlesque them in the language of the eighteenth. The chronicles of the time give numerous and detailed accounts of these early transactions between the Old Man of the Mountain and St. Louis. The accounts agree with all the documents of the time which refer to the relations existing between the East and West after the commencement of the Crusades. They are confirmed by other and almost contemporaneous testimony, which shows the Old Man of the Mountain, four years later, asking the help of St. Louis against the Mongol Tartars, from whose invasions Western Asia suffered as much as Eastern Europe. Without thinking of any difference of race or religion, the foes of yesterday eagerly sought each other's help against the common enemy of to-day. Such a complication of nations, princes, and events would give rise to many improbable and contradictory facts, and the true history of the period lies hidden under the many legends which exaggerate and disfigure it.
Another apprehension and another temptation were added about this time to those which already attracted the thoughts and heart of Louis to the East. The dangers of the Latin empire of Constantinople increased daily. It was assailed alike by Greek, Mussulman, and Tartar. In 1236 the young Emperor Baldwin II. resolved to solicit in person the help of the princes of the West, more especially of the young King of France, who was already renowned for his piety and his chivalrous zeal.
Baldwin was the possessor of a treasure which fascinated the imagination of the Christians of those days—the crown of thorns worn by Christ during His passion. He had pledged it at Venice as a security for a considerable loan from the Venetians, and he now offered to make it over to Louis in return for efficient help either in men or money. Louis accepted the offer with rapture. Not long before he had been greatly alarmed at the reported loss of another precious relic, one of the nails said to have fastened the body of our Lord to the cross. It had been deposited in the Abbey of St. Denis, and disappeared one day during a religious ceremony. When it was found, Louis said: 'I would rather that the earth had opened and swallowed up one of the chief cities of my kingdom than have lost it.'
He took every care to avoid the disgrace which would attend any kind of traffic in so sacred a matter, and ultimately obtained the crown of thorns for a sum which, including all expenses, would equal about 54,000l. of our money. [Footnote 14]
[Footnote 14: 12,000 livres Parisis, about 1,350,000 francs in modern French money. The French livre (like the English pound) was formerly a pound's weight of silver. Charlemagne ordained that a silver sou should be precisely the twentieth part of twelve ounces of silver, and in this way twenty sous came to be looked upon as a livre. Both weight and value have been very greatly reduced in the course of time. Again, the weight of the livre, and consequently its value, varied in different parts of France. The livre Parisis was the livre of Paris, the livre Tournois (p. 19) the livre of Tours, &c.]
We cannot, in the present day, sympathise with the eager credulity which Christian faith does not require and sound criticism entirely condemns; but we ought to and we can understand it in an age when men contemplated every fact and every tradition of the Gospel with a deep, poetic faith, and when the belief that they were in the presence of any fragment or relic of sacred times was sufficient to call forth emotion and reverence as deep as their faith.
It is to such feelings that we owe one of the most perfect and graceful monuments of the Middle Ages, the Sainte Chapelle, built by Louis between 1245 and 1248, to contain the precious relics which he had accumulated. The architect, Pierre de Montreuil, comprehended and glorified the piety of the King in a marvellous manner, and no doubt his own genius was kindled by the same strong religious feeling which animated St. Louis.